Mark Zuckerberg is now world’s youngest Centibillionaire; joins Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates in $100bn club

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has seen a phenomenal rise in his wealth post the roll of out of a new feature, making him the youngest Centibillionaire in the world, as per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Zuckerberg’s net worth now stands above $100 billion after Facebook introduced Instagram reels to take on TikTok. The feature was introduced in select markets and made its way to the United States on Wednesday. 

Zuckerberg has now joined Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Bill Gates in the 'Centibillionaire Club'. Bezos and Gates saw gains in their wealth this week as well. The Amazon founder's fortune rose $2.6 billion in the past week (net worth: $189.8 billion), sold off $3.1 billion worth of Amazon stock on Monday and Tuesday. 

Zuckerberg's net worth crossed the $100 billion threshold two days after the launch of the new feature, sending Facebook’s stock soaring 12% on Thursday and Friday. 

Instagram Reels was introduced at a time when TikTok is going through tough times. Owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, the platform has already been banned in India and has lately, been target of US President Donald Trump. 

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Late Thursday night, he issued an executive order that will prohibit Americans from doing business with ByteDance starting September 20, 2020. ByteDance has reportedly threatened to sue the US government in response. TikTok said it was "shocked" by the recent executive order, which it said "was issued without any due process". 

Trump issued the order prohibiting any person in the US from doing transactions with the short video-sharing platform's Chinese owner, ByteDance. While both Beijing and ByteDance have rejected the allegations, Microsoft is now pursuing talks to acquire TikTok's US business. 

The five largest US tech companies, Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Facebook, and Microsoft, currently have market valuations equivalent to about 30% of US gross domestic product (GDP).